Cheong Wa Dae reels from insider's claim of tapping civilians

Mired in an allegation of having illegally investigated intelligence from civilians and politicians, South Korean President Moon Jae-in speaks during the Ministry of National Defense's debriefing on its 2019 agenda at its headquarters in Yongsan-gu District in Seoul, Thursday. Yonhap

The presidential office Cheong Wa Dae remained on the defensive Thursday amid a controversy raised by one of its own former staff members who confessed to having illegally investigated civilians.

The attacks began shortly after Kim Tae-woo, a special inspector from the prosecution, was ordered to return to his original post for allegedly attempting to interfere with a police investigation involving one of his acquaintances.

The former Cheong Wa Dae official denies the allegation and instead claims he was relieved of duty because his reports had included corruption allegations against those close to President Moon Jae-in and the ruling Democratic Party (DP), including Woo Yoon-keun, a former lawmaker of the DP and the incumbent ambassador to Russia.

The main opposition Liberty Korea Party floor leader Na Kyung-won, center, speaks during the emergency meeting at the National Assembly, Tuesday, convened in interest of Cheong Wa Dae's alleged illegal intelligence gathering on civilians and politicians. Yonhap

Cheong Wa Dae said Kim's report on Woo was quickly dismissed, as the corruption allegation against the ambassador had been found to be groundless and also because Woo should not have been subject to Cheong Wa Dae inspection under its own regulations prohibiting the inspection of civilians or politicians who are not appointed by the president.

Kim came back to claim he had investigated many civilians while working as a Cheong Wa Dae inspector, often on a direct order from his superior, Park Hyoung-chul, secretary to President Moon Jae-in for anti-corruption.

Park rejected the accusation when speaking to reporters Wednesday, saying the former inspector acted on his own and that most of his reports involving civilians had been discarded for that same reason.

Civilian inspection is a specially sensitive, if not emotional, issue for the Moon Jae-in administration, which has accused former conservative governments under Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye of having conducted such illegal inspections as a way of silencing their critics and ensuring their own political and economic gains.

In a press conference at Cheong Wa Dae on Tuesday, the presidential office spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom denied the allegation on the Moon Jae-in administration that it illegally gathered intelligence on civilians and politicians, saying "there is no such thing in the genes of the Moon administration." Yonhap

Vowing never to follow suit, the Moon Jae-in administration has even prohibited the national spy agency, the National Intelligence Service (NIS), from gathering local political intelligence.

Still, the main opposition Liberty Korea Party accused the government of illegally and indiscriminately investigating civilians, with a list of 100 reports supposedly produced by Kim while working as a Cheong Wa Dae inspector.

"The Moon Jae-in administration is the government that took its hands off the NIS, which has vast amounts of human resources and funds. Does it make sense to say (Cheong Wa Dae) then tried to inspect civilians with less than 10 special inspectors? I ask for your judgment based on common sense," Cheong Wa Dae spokesman Kim Eui-kyeom said earlier.

Cheong Wa Dae filed a formal complaint against Kim with the prosecution on Wednesday. (Yonhap)